Educational policy and foster youths: The risks of change

Recent child welfare legislation requires agencies to address the educational well-being of foster youths. Schools face new accountability standards through No Child Left Behind and the Obama Blueprint for Reform as they move toward the goal of ensuring that all children receive a quality education. Both of these pieces of legislation can work together at the macro and the micro level to reduce the historical impediments to educational success for foster youths. The authors review the challenges, the education and child welfare legislation, and suggest an action plan for schools to help foster youths and their parents or caretakers to improve educational outcomes.